


Closed Curtains

by YellowAsphodel



Category: Patrick Melrose (TV)
Genre: Oxford, PTSD, University AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowAsphodel/pseuds/YellowAsphodel
Summary: A vignette of Patrick at Oxford."Squaring his shoulders he stepped out into the quad, the gravel underfoot jarring in his ear. The landscape gardener who'd had that idea should have been fucking fired - ruinous to expensive shoes. The gravel gleams so white, white like the crests of waves, white like cliffs plunging into the sea at Beachy Head, white like gravelly beaches south of Lacoste. No, no. no."





	Closed Curtains

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> NOTE:  
> At the universities of Oxford and Cambridge each student belongs to a college - think of Hogwarts houses - where students study, socialise, eat and sleep.  
> Most teaching is conducted at the student's college on a one-on-one basis - ususally an hour or two each week. These sessions are called tutorials (short: tute(s)) at Oxford (supervisions at Cambridge). The teachers are called tutors at Oxford (supervisors in Cambridge).  
> Roughly speaking, each term lasts 8 weeks and each week students have to hand in an essay to their tutor that will lay the basis for that week's discussion/teaching in the tutorial. This essay will have to be handed in to the tutor’s pigeon hole (pidge).
> 
> If a student fails to apply themselves, the college can make the decision to suspend the student for a term. This is called rustication (from the Latin for being sent back to the country - i.e. home, away from Oxford). (Cambridge calls it intermission).
> 
> Each college has Porters - think concierges - and the main entry to the college is called the porter's lodge (short: plodge). Depending on the geography of the college, anyone who comes in and out of the college has to pass the Porters.
> 
> Any student who wishes to stay out of college overnight must sign out at the plodge, and sign in when coming back.
> 
> Most colleges have their buildings grouped around squares, called quadrangles in Oxford (short: quads). (In Cambridge they’re called courts.) At many colleges it is forbidden for undergrads to walk on the grass in the quads/courts.
> 
> Beachy Head: notorious sucide spot, white chalk cliffs near Eastbourne, East Sussex, on the southern coast of England.

It didn't matter if the essay Patrick had written while high on speed was an atrocious mess of non sequiturs, hyperbole and shoddy citation - what mattered was that he hit the word target and handed it in, i _n the first place_. Especially after the disaster of last week. He’d handed in his essay on Hopkins hideously late with yet another mass of apologies. His tutor had been suspiciously congenial in extending the deadline.

  
Patrick didn't want to push him further into making the other shoe to drop, better to not even think of the possibility of rustication. His work at Oxford was the only thing that gave him a shred of meaning in life. Else he could just as well OD in his flat in London, nothing to stop him there. (Not that he didn't already have a taxi waiting to take him to London, mind. Think of it… as a reward for getting work done.)

His essay planning may be out of sync but his cravings had long become like the better circadian rhythm. But for the clock on the mantle above the disused fireplace - with regret he’d noted that he’d never be able to kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning… - he wouldn’t have been able to tell what time it was anyway, for he’d kept the windows closed and curtains drawn.He didn’t exactly want to display that he was sitting at his desk in his underwear, breathing in the stale two day old air, sweating with the exertion of writing. His title, ironically enough: “Drugs, Death and Debauchery: Colonialism and Opium Dens in British late Victorian Decadent Literature”. Not that he didn’t feel like a real-life Dorian Gray now and again.

  
He ripped the last page out of the typewriter to join the other ink-stained planes of wood pulp. Now - the only thing left to do: shower, get dressed and drag yourself to your tutor's pigeonhole. Then you can disappear to London until the tute tomorrow afternoon.  
Wrapped in a bath robe and holding the first set of clothes he’d wear in a day, he stepped out of the darkness of his room to slink to the communal bathroom. Gathering the presence of mind to push open the door had taken a minute.

  
_come on, come on, come on_

  
He recoiled from the light on the stairway and the creaking floor boards. Dim, but still brighter than his desk lamp. He didn’t want to imagine the pain he’d be in if it was sunny outside. Don’t forget the sun glasses. A shower and shave later he discovered that: alas, it was.

  
_'And the sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new'._ Even with the sunglasses on he had to set down his bag and lean against the wood paneling in the hall for another minute to get used to the light and over the sudden vertigo. _Footsteps. Stebbins from a floor above? Better to beat an escape to avoid him._

  
Squaring his shoulders he stepped out into the quad, the gravel underfoot jarring in his ear. _The landscape gardener who had that idea should have been fucking fired - the gravel will ruins shoes. Whoopsie, nearly stepped on the grass there, Patrick. You really should be more careful, mon garçon. Not now. No voices. Not now._ Unbidden images appear: _the gravel gleams white, white like the crests of waves, white like the cliffs at Beachy Head plunging into the sea, white like gravelly beaches south of Lacoste. No, no. no._

  
Passing through the archway into the next quad, turning the corner towards the plodge he passed McDougal from his year. A nod, a smile and that conversation is evaded. But - McDougal seemed unusually tense, clutching a letter in his hand - bad news? He was usually such a jovial guy. A look over his shoulder but McDougal’s vanished.

  
“Good morning’ Mr Melrose.” _Shit, of all the possible porters on duty and it had to be the head porter? Always seemed that bit too perceptive for comfort._

  
“Good morning Mr Hadley. I’d like to sign out please.” _Please, just get the register. Just get the damn register. No small talk, please._

  
_“_ How is the girl friend?” _Ah yes, the sick fake girl friend in London that he’d invented to fob off the noisy porters. Fuck._

  
“Still no sign of waking up, I’m afraid.”

  
“Yes… A car crash is nothing to laugh at, innit?” _Who the. Fuck. was talking about laughing? Are you stupid or are you suspicious, trying to catch me out? No, this is just the paranoia talking. Christ._

  
“There you go, Mr Melrose,” _finally , finally - the register - with a slightly shaky hand he signs quickly._

  
_“_ Thank you, Mr Hadley. And…” Holding up the wad of compressed tree that got wasted on his essay is self-explanatory, effective to ward off further conversation.

  
“Of course, off you go. hand that in.”

  
A dash for the pidge. First his tutor’s. _Finally rid of the essay - at least until tomorrow. No, don’t think about that._ Then his. A wad of letters and what feels like one lone postcard is hastily stuffed in his overnight bag.

  
And then he is finally free to step out the gates and into the waiting cab. As it drives away he feels his shoulders finally relaxing infinitesimally.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> I might expand this. Not sure yet. Let me know what you think.


End file.
